Kirov II: Cauldron of Fire

ears on the situation, and watch for enemy destroyers. When the proverbial coast was clear, they could sneak out again.

Once ashore on the eastern side of the bay they made their way up a prominent hill, some hundred meters in elevation, and crouched atop its rocky ridge to search the seas to the north. Able seaman Heinrich Waldmann peered through his binoculars to the north , but saw nothing in the moonless night. Then he caught sight of something winking in the distance, and an odd sound came to him.

He did not know it then but he had glimpsed and heard the KA-40 helicopter where it now orbited Kirov’s position, standing guard like a watchful sheep dog. Even so, he reasoned that must be the location of the enemy ship, and he and his mate slipped back down the craggy hill to get back to the U-boat and report. Sometime later the news gave Rosenbaum a chill, for it meant that this battlecruiser was still close at hand.

“Could you see any sign of fire? Smoke?”

“No sir, just an odd sound, almost like an aircraft, and a few running lights.”

He clearly heard an explosion, and knew his torpedo had struck the target, but apparently the damage was not as great as he hoped. At least we’ve wounded him, he thought. He’s probably cruising off shore with men in the water to survey the damage. It will be safe enough to surface here now for a quiet breath of fresh air. Then we can slip out of the bay and creep up on him again. They probably think I am long gone, and wishing to get as far away from this place as possible. But they are wrong. I’m going to get this ship, for Klaus, for U-73, and to beat my lucky number seven as well.

Chapter 21

Just before dawn on the 13th of August, 1942, Kirov was still hovering off the northern coast of Menorca, her sonar repairs and further hull inspections well underway, though it would be another six hours before they would finish. The KA-40 had good endurance and was able to stay up a full six hours before refueling. Though Fedorov regretted the loss of the aviation fuel, he kept the chopper aloft all that night and it kept a watchful eye and ear out for the enemy submarine, but saw nothing. Byko certified the aft Horse Tail towed array was now fully functional again and promised all would be ready on the forward dome by noon.

On his way back to the bridge he stopped briefly at sick bay, hoping to check up on Admiral Volsky. Zolkin was there with him, and the two men were chatting like the old friends they were, a bowl of good hot soup in the Admiral’s lap where he sat up on the recovery cot.

“Mister Fedorov,” Volsky smiled. “I was hoping to hear from you. What was it this time? Did we strike a mine?”

“No sir, the ship is well, but we had a very near engagement with a German U-boat.”

“A U-boat? You sound very confident about that.”

“ I believe I know the boat, sir. And I think I know where it might be hiding as well.”

“Your books tell you all this?”

“Not exactly, sir, but I have made some well informed assumptions. We put sonobuoys in the water where Karpov directed and yet did not find anything, so there is only one place this boat could be.”

“Did you tell Karpov about it? The man is very edgy when it comes to submarines.”

“I believe Captain Karpov has gone below, sir. Rodenko has the bridge for the moment, and I am heading there now. I just wanted to see how you were recovering and give you a report. Dobrynin says the reactors are stable, so the ship is stable as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well sir, every time we have moved—experienced these odd effects and time displacement, there has been a strange flux in the reactor core. I think it happened several times after we first vanished from the scene of that last nuclear detonation. I found these odd references in the history to the sighting of a ship the allies believed to be a Hipper class cruiser, and on the very course we were making when we went down to investigate Halifax.”

“Yes,” said Volsky. “I remember you bringing this up. You are still ruminating on that?”

“It’s just that I was considering that it might happen again, sir. It obviously did happen again, or why else do we find ourselves here, still stuck in the middle of this war?”

“Have you considered telling Dobrynin to fiddle with the reactors a bit more,” Zolkin spoke up.

“What do you mean, Doctor?”

“Tell him to turn his dials, or whatever else he does down there, and maybe we will move again. Then we don’t have this problem of Gibraltar in front of us and the British can relax, fight Germans and Italians, and leave us poor Russians alone.”

Volsky got a laugh from that, but held up his soup spoon, a glint in his eye and said: “The Doctor makes a good point. Tell Dobrynin to plot a course for Severomorsk, the year 2021. Then we could all go ashore and forget this nightmare.”

Fedorov smiled, still considering this for a moment. “I was thinking about something else,” he said. “Perhaps it is only a coincidence, but it was twelve days from the day of Orel’s accident until we eventually vanished into this odd green sea again. That was from July 28 through August 8, counting both days as bookends. Then we vanish again, and it is another twelve days sailing in that desolate world we discovered until 20 August—and we move again.”

“You are suggesting there is an interval involved here, that we move every twelve days?”

“It was just a thought, sir. Perhaps it is mere coincidence. For that matter, we have never determined what sent us back in the first place.”

“I thought it was all these nuclear explosions,” said Zolkin.

“We all assumed as much,” Fedorov agreed.

“Then if nobody tries to lock us up here in my sick bay and we can manage to keep our nuclear warheads in the magazine and not on the missiles, we should be fine,” Zolkin concluded glibly. “We’ll just sail about the Mediterranean until we run out of things to shoot at—or until we run out of missiles to fire at them.”

“Not a very appealing prospect,” said Volsky. “I would much rather find that deserted island in the South Pacific, but to do that we have to get there alive and in one piece. The longer we stay here, the more chance we have for these unhappy encounters with airplanes, battleships and submarines. Something tells me we have more trouble ahead of us than behind us if we are ever to get out into the Atlantic again.”

“I have an idea,” said Zolkin. “This submarine business aside, these waters are relatively safe, are they not? Wasn’t Spain neutral in the war? Don’t these islands belong to Spain? We could drop anchor here in neutral waters and wait another week or so to test Mister Fedorov’s new theory. Maybe the ship will move again, on the twelfth day, and then we don’t have to kill anybody else, and they don’t have to kill us.” He folded his arms, a satisfied look on his face.

Fedorov smiled, his thoughts returning to the problems in this moment. “Well, sir…We still have the KA-40 up and I could probably prosecute this submarine contact further, but repairs will be completed by noon and the ship is sound. However I am sorry to report the loss of four crewman in this last incident.”

He told Volsky what had happened, and the luck that had saved them from a direct torpedo strike when the diving boat inadvertently shielded the ship and took the blow instead.

“Astounding,” said Zolkin. “It could have been much worse.”

“Very much worse, Doctor,” said Volsky. “That torpedo would have probably caused severe damage, and flooding as well. We were very lucky.”

“Sometimes fate does things like that,” said Zolkin, his dark eyes wide. “We could have been hit, perhaps we should have been hit. Who knows how many we might have lost in that event? These four men died in their place, and that is all we have to console ourselves. It would be so much better if we were not sailing around here in these metal machines shooting at one another, but we are—until men come to their senses, I suppose, and realize that choosing life is better than death, even if it means you do not win the day or avenge a fallen foe.”

Fedorov nodded. Then to Volsky he asked: “Do you want me to destroy this submarine, sir?”